1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates generally to racking systems for equipment and, more specifically, to a system for enabling in-rack servicing of rack-mounted equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
For equipment, such as computer servers and audio/video devices, mounted in a racks, there is an occasional need to adjust and/or service the equipment without completely removing the equipment from the rack. For example, the complete removal of the equipment from the rack may require the disconnection of one or all of a multitude of cables/connectors to which the equipment is attached. Although the cables/connectors may not have enough slack to permit complete removal of the equipment from the rack, there may be enough slack to permit partial removal of the equipment.
Two current devices used to connect the equipment to the rack are commonly known as slides and rails. Rails are typically mechanically simpler than slides and usually have a L-shaped cross-section. The vertical portion of the L-shaped cross-section is connected to the rack and the equipment rests on the horizontal portion of the L-shaped cross-section. Although both space- and cost-efficient, equipment mounted on rails are typical not considered to be rack serviceable. The space-efficiency of the rail can be attributed, at least in part, to only the vertical portion of the L-shaped cross-section being between the rack and a housing of the equipment.
As an example, for a rail-mounted piece of equipment that is partially removed from a rail for servicing, the rail only provides support in a single direction for that portion of the equipment resting on the rail. If force, either from the user maintaining the equipment or the weight of the equipment cantilevered from the rack, is sufficiently large, the equipment may rotate/tip, which can cause damage to the equipment itself or the cables/connectors to which the equipment is attached.
To prevent the tipping of the piece of equipment in the rack, slides have been developed that enable the equipment to be partially removed from the rack. Many different types of slides are known with many types of configurations. A common configuration is a two-piece system in which a first piece is connected to the rack and a second piece is connected to the equipment, and the first and second pieces slide relative to one another. An issue arising with the use of slides, however, is that the slides take up horizontal space within the rack. For a given horizontal size of a housing of a piece of equipment, a rack using slides requires about ¾″ more space in a horizontal direction than a rack using rails. Since, in many applications, space is limited, there is a need for a racking system that combines the space-efficiency of rails with the in-rack service capability of slides.